


Purpose

by Xaidurk



Category: Black Jack (Anime & Manga), Osamu Tezuka Star System
Genre: Assisted Suicide, Gen, M/M, Medical, War, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4540728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xaidurk/pseuds/Xaidurk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kiriko, forced to serve in the Japanese military as a field doctor before completing med school, witnesses horrific things and loses his sense of purpose and meaning. Warnings for alcoholism, suicidal ideation, assisted suicide, war imagery (nothing terribly gory, though), internalized homophobia. Largely a character exploration piece with some analysis of Kiriko and Black Jack's personalities in the endnotes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purpose

**Author's Note:**

> It's important to note that the only research I did for this was about the effects of morphine on the human body. My depiction of what the lives of Japanese field doctors was like is not accurate and only based on very vague memories from Shigeru Mizuki's historical works. (If you're interested in manga about Imperial Japan, by the way, Mizuki's works Onwards Towards our Noble Deaths and his massive Showa series are brilliant.)

Every single day, mosquitoes poked at Kiriko's neck and sucked his blood. They left little red welts that never stopped itching no matter what salve he used for them. He stared at himself in a filthy metal mirror each morning before he had to attend to his duties and dabbed greasy lotion on every red bump he could see. Sometimes he wondered if the stuff actually attracted the insects.

Then Kiriko would shave what little facial hair he could grow, and clip his prematurely greying hair to a buzz cut if he needed to. His commander wasn't too strict about that lately. He was busy with trying to boost morale and explain to _his_ superiors what was going on, so peoples’ hair grew long.

Once he finished grooming, he put on his uniform and headed out to the medical tent in the base. Only five men slept there. Slow day. He made the rounds, asked them how they were feeling, scribbled information onto their medical charts, relayed instructions to nurses or higher-ups. One man, Tetsuya, sat up and wrote letters all day.

"Give yourself a break," Kiriko said to him. "Who are you always writing to, anyway?" Tetsuya adjusted his glasses, pointed with the end of his pen to each of the other patients, and kept writing.

"They're worse off than me," he said. "I'm just helping out so their families and friends back home know what’s up." Kiriko sighed through his nose.

"We're thinking that you're ready to return to your usual duties after tomorrow. Who'll take over for you?"

"Mizuki." Tetsuya looked to his right and grinned at the sleeping private. "Ain't that right, Mizuki? You've got good handwriting!"

"Yep, sure," Mizuki said from under his blankets. Tetsuya laughed and looked back at Kiriko.

"See? He says 'yep' to anything you ask him while he's asleep," he said. "Mizuki, heard you got caught with a man the other day. That true?"

"Yep, you bet," Mizuki said. Kiriko flushed and glared at Tetsuya's chart. He held it up a little higher, closer to his face.

"Just try and get some rest today and tomorrow. Before you know it, you'll be back to hauling ammo around and shooting at Yankees," he said.

"Sure, sure. Hey Mizuki, can I put that in this letter to your parents?" Tetsuya said.

"Go for it," Mizuki said, and snored a moment later. Kiriko rolled his eyes.

"Anyone in pain?" he said to the whole tent. One man raised his hand, another managed to say, "me, me," before losing his breath. Kiriko doled out morphine injections to the two of them. "Nurse, record that. They can have another dose in, oh, four to six hours."

"Yes, sir," she said. Another field doctor came in, his face slick with sweat. He walked directly to Kiriko and placed his hand on his shoulder. He directed him to the front of the tent and spoke in a hushed voice.

"They're planning a big assault on the American troops north of us," he said. "With the way the war's going, be prepared to deal with a lot of dying men." Kiriko gulped and went pale.

"Why aren't we retreating? There's no use keeping this up!" he said. The other field doctor nodded.

"I know, I know. They'll never get rid of tradition, though. 'Death before dishonor' is all it will ever be for us," he said. "Just be prepared for later."

He went back into the tent. Kiriko bit his lip and stared up at the sky. The sun beat down through tall palm leaves and parrots screeched beyond the encampment. Drops of sweat trickled down his forehead before he even noticed the heat.

\---

The day of the attack came and, as predicted, fit soldiers brought wounded men in for treatment. For the first time in a while, the tent was full. Kiriko rushed from patient to patient, removing bullets, cauterizing wounds, and administering pain killers. Amputations made him ill. Sometimes his superiors admonished him for not cutting a leg off right away, or for disagreeing with their own decision to amputate.

But oh, the cries. He'd grown used to seeing men cry, but these were boys. His frustration grew whenever one screamed for his mother, and he hated the Japanese military for forcing him to do this right before he'd finished med school. Since his training with surgery was incomplete, the other doctors relied on him mostly for simple or routine treatments. Periodically they’d ask him to use his knowledge of internal medicine whenever a patient got ill with something other than a war wound.

He couldn't sleep. Whenever he got the chance to, anxiety kept him wide awake. Was Suzuki going to make it through the night? Would Tagame's infection clear up so he could keep his right hand? And Yoshida would not stop screaming unless he was sedated.

His mind did not turn off. Thoughts assaulted him. And every day when someone finally died, those thoughts became a typhoon of words. Worthless, useless, pointless.

Suzuki died a week after treatment. Tagame lost his right hand. Yoshida was such a mess that even being completely paralyzed from the middle of his back down didn't stop the pain, and not even the most experienced field doctor knew what to do. None of the nearby towns had a hospital, and any sort of exploratory surgery was out of the question for this environment. Kiriko's mantra haunted him during his daily duties, and more men kept showing up for treatment.

So many of them died, but the tent was never empty.

More than once, he stuck a loaded gun into his mouth. He bit the barrel and fingered the trigger. He dropped it to the floor, curled up, and sobbed. Useless! It was all useless!

One night, his superior, Dr. Nonaka, found him. He picked Kiriko up off the floor and took him to the closest town. There, they went to the quietest bar they could find. He bought a bottle of some alcohol Kiriko wasn't familiar with--some foreign type with an amber hue. Three other people sat scattered around the rest of the bar, and the waitress’ shoes tapped against its wooden floor. The dusty orange lightbulbs without covers hummed and dangled from the ceiling. Whenever a breeze came through the open windows, they swayed.

Nonaka poured the drink into two shot glasses. He set one in front of Kiriko.

"See, Kiriko," Nonaka said, "I'm not saying you should take up drinking. But I am saying that it's better than whatever you were doing back there." Kiriko glared into the glass and downed it. He pursed his lips and blew air through his nose. "I'm not sure what the army thinks is happening down here," Nonaka continued. "They probably think this'll all be over in a week if they keep attacking." He poured another shot for Kiriko.

"Oh, it'll be over in a week," Kiriko said and grasped the cup. "They won't like the outcome, and God knows our families will never know the truth, but it'll be over." The two of them drank and sat silently.

"You know, Kiriko, I'd just like you to know something," Nonaka said. Kiriko glanced up with just his eyes. "I know it's hard work. I know it's even harder to keep doing this day after day. But it isn't pointless."

Pointless. The word rang in Kiriko's head.

"They need you, Kiriko. You're the only one who doesn't consider amputation first, and you're the only one who keeps pestering the others to not switch to hospice care for the patients who might have even the smallest chance." He grabbed Kiriko's arm and squeezed it with his head lowered. "Do you know how many men you've saved that I would've given up on?"

Kiriko stared at him, slack jawed. Nonaka's voice was strained.

"So please, don't give up. You're important to us. To _them_. It's not pointless." Kiriko bit his lower lip and turned back to the bar. He made a fist with his right hand and lowered his head.

"I'm sorry, Doctor Nonaka," he said. "I was selfish and cowardly." He reached out and patted Nonaka's shoulder. "Thank you. Thank you so much for speaking to me." He smiled and Nonaka, red-eyed and tearful, nodded.

"Let's do our best!" he said and clasped Kiriko's other hand. Kiriko nodded back.

"Yes! We'll show those yanks a thing or two!" he said. They grinned, drank, and returned to the camp singing folk songs of victory.

Despite their best efforts, the camp morale continued to decline. Soon they expanded the medical tent and moved especially noisy patients to their own private tents. Yoshida was the first of those to go.

"He needs to be on his own, doctor," one of the nurses told Kiriko. "The other men just get depressed when he wakes up screaming. The other doctors worry that it's compromising their health and affecting the speed of their recovery." Kiriko scowled. He focused on another patient's chart.

"Don't call me doctor," he said. "I don't yet have my degree." The nurse fidgeted with her fingers. He continued writing. She stared at her feet. He scratched his head and took some notes.

"So, can we--?" she said.

"Just do it." He waved her presence away. She bowed and left.

So Yoshida got his own tent, far enough away from the other men that his cries couldn't be heard. It was small and cramped, especially with his bed right in the middle. In one corner sat his IV stand, and across from it, next to the entrance, was a chair. Nurses went there regularly to administer morphine, change his nutrient drip, and clean him up, and Kiriko made it a point to go daily. At first he only examined him for any changes, made notes on his chart, and returned to his duties. Then he lingered, using it as an opportunity for a smoke break. Sometimes he even drank. The tent smelled of smoke after a while, and he left little drop stains on the wood floor.

One day, after a few sips of government-sponsored sake from his pewter flask, he sat and gazed at Yoshida. He started writing on his chart, but grimaced and set it on the ground. He pulled his flask from his coat and took another drink. He stared at it for a moment, fingering the engravings he’d made of his name. Some dirt was trapped in the “ri.” He brushed it away and finally looked up at Yoshida.

"I keep contacting the mainland and they just don't listen to me," he said. "I've sent them your chart multiple times, explained that you need to be at a real hospital with an X-ray and decent equipment and proper doctors, but they never even grace me with a response!" He clenched his fists. "God damn them. God damn this whole mess." He held his head.

Yoshida was still sedated. He wouldn't respond.

Kiriko made a note—“no significant improvement”—on his chart. He returned to the main tent and to his other patients.

He didn't speak to Yoshida again for a few days. But he did stare. His eyes always went half lidded when he saw his patient—especially when he drank. Even knowing how much pain Yoshida was certainly in, he had a certain masculine delicacy about him that Kiriko enjoyed. His high cheekbones, his square jaw. Those eyelashes. Kiriko knew the rest of his body, too, on a strictly medical level. His muscles, lean and taut despite days of sedation, were finely defined. Sometimes during his examinations, Kiriko would let his fingers brush Yoshida's collarbone and chest. His skin was like that of an apricot—soft and supple.

Whatever was wrong with his spine, it was too late now. Kiriko knew Yoshida would never walk again. And something still hurt him every time he had the misfortune to wake up.

Kiriko's stomach felt like it was curling up. He sipped from his flask and let the warmth from his drink quell that nausea. He touched Yoshida's face with all its beard stubble, and focused on those lips. Before he knew it, he'd leaned over, closed his eyes—and kissed Yoshida.

Kiriko opened his eyes, closed them again, and completely forgot his own professional ethics and morals. Something felt so automatic and real about this. He didn't stop. He didn't want to. Yoshida's mouth tasted so sweet.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw that Yoshida's were cracked open, too. He stared at Kiriko, only half awake. Kiriko's eyes widened. He rushed out, stopped and stared at the sky, hurried back in, gave Yoshida the morphine, and went back to his personal tent. He sat on his cot and held his face in his hands.

That night, he went into town to the same bar and drank that foreign alcohol alone.

\---

A day passed before Kiriko went back to Yoshida's tent. He kneeled and bowed, letting his forehead graze the ground.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I've failed you as a doctor and a man. I wasn't able to get you better care, and because of my inability and inexperience, you're… most likely disabled. I'm not sure how to treat you anymore. That wound is completely beyond my abilities." His face turned red. "And I am so, so sorry for… taking advantage of you while you slept the day before yesterday. I have no excuse."

Yoshida was silent.

"I… I'm a pervert. There's something wrong with my mind and I let it get the best of me," Kiriko said. Tears welled up in his eyes. "I will never do such a thing again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Birds chirped outside. A breeze jostled the tent's flap. Yoshida turned his head and looked at Kiriko.

"Doctor," he said in a weak, strained voice. Kiriko looked up. His eyes quivered and watered.

"You're awake? You're not in pain?" he said and hurried to Yoshida’s side. Yoshida reached up to him and grasped Kiriko's uniform. He stared into his eyes with clenched teeth and furrowed brows.

"Please kill me."

Kiriko felt cold. Tears fell from Yoshida's eyes.

"…What?" Kiriko said. His throat was dry.

"Kill me. It hurts so bad, doctor. It hurts so bad and I don't have any legs!" Yoshida said.

"You still have your legs, you just sustained a spinal injury and it's possible that the pain will—" Kiriko said. His mind and gut felt cramped.

"Just let me die in peace!" Yoshida said. "I'm useless, useless, useless! What good can a cripple do for the emperor?!" Kiriko stared.

"The emperor?" he said.

"It hurts. It hurts. Please, doctor." Yoshida stared up at him. He blinked away tears the best he could. "You can do it, right? Please just kill me."

Kiriko couldn't meet his eyes any longer. He looked away, looked down at his shoes.

"I… I can't…" He bit his lip. His heart wouldn't slow down. Yoshida's lower lip twitched and he sobbed. Kiriko closed his eyes.

"Please. Please," Yoshida said. Kiriko opened his eyes and met Yoshida’s gaze. He looked away again.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he said. He lowered his gaze. "I can do it." Yoshida nodded.

"I'm sure," he said. Kiriko took out the vial of morphine and withdrew a massive dose--enough to do the deed. His hands were steady as he injected the medicine into Yoshida's vein. He clutched Yoshida's hand.

"You'll go to sleep and stop breathing soon," he said. "I'll stay with you." Yoshida smiled.

"The pain's fading, doctor," he said. "I can barely feel it. I feel good." His speech slurred.

"Good. I'm glad it's gone," Kiriko said.

"You're a good man, doctor, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank…" Yoshida's pupils shrank to the size of pinpoints and his breaths slowed. Kiriko touched Yoshida’s neck and felt his heartbeats lag. Slower, slower. He didn’t look at his watch and didn’t know how long he sat there, clutching Yoshida’s hand.

The heartbeats stopped. Kiriko heard only birds tittering outside.

He closed Yoshida's eyelids. He recorded a reasonable time of death on his chart, and walked back to the main medical tent.

"Private Yoshida has passed away," he said to Nonaka.

"What? He was stabilized!" Nonaka said.

"I'm unsure how he passed. It happened before I got to him, so I estimated his time of death," Kiriko said and handed over the chart. Nonaka flipped through it.

"I see. This may be for the best," he said. "Thank you for your hard work with him." He shook Kiriko's hand. "Don't be hard on yourself, now. These things happen for a reason." Kiriko nodded once.

"Yes, sir," he said. "Thank you." Nonaka frowned at him and stepped closer. He put his hand on Kiriko’s shoulder and looked straight into his eyes.

"Take the rest of the day off. I'll pull your weight around here."

"Thank you. Please let me know if there's an emergency I can help with." Kiriko bowed, turned, and left as Nonaka watched his back. He walked to his personal tent and sat down in his cot. He stared at the gun in his drawer, took it out, and checked to see if it was loaded. Six bullets, as always.

He put it away. With it, he slipped his flask in and shut the drawer. Yoshida was dead, but he didn't feel like drinking or using the gun. He smiled. Yoshida had thanked him so profusely as he died, and he looked so peaceful after he passed. Legitimately at rest.

Kiriko lied down and stared at his hands.

\---

As more and more men arrived wounded after more and more losing battles, Kiriko's new duty became easier to carry out. In the confusion, he got away with withdrawing much more morphine--or any similarly deadly drug--than was needed and injecting it into a patient begging for death. The death count trudged upwards and the Allies advanced closer.

"Oh God, I can see my grandparents! I wanna go to them! I wanna see my grandfather again!" another one of his patients cried during a busy day. Kiriko leaned close to his ear, pretending to check his pulse.

"I can take you there," he said in the lowest voice he could manage. "Are you absolutely sure you wish to die?" The man nodded and gazed glass-eyed past the ceiling.

"Grandfather wants to go fishing," he said. Kiriko nodded and took out the morphine. He withdrew it and flicked the syringe before pushing the air bubbles out. He positioned its tip against the soldier's arm.

Nonaka grabbed his wrist. Kiriko flinched and dropped the poison.

"I'm administering morphine! He's in pain!" he said. Nonaka glared and his face turned red. He tightened his lips and gestured at another doctor who was nearly finished.

"Get a nurse to wrap that man up. Get over here and amputate, and get these burns treated!" he said. "Don't let anyone interrupt us for a while." He dragged Kiriko away and outside the camp, into the jungle.

"Doctor Nonaka, I have no idea why you're interfering with my treatment of that man! There are people in there who need help and you're putting their lives at risk by taking myself and yourself away from our duties!" Kiriko said. Sweat dripped down his sunken cheeks. Nonaka shoved him against a tree.

"I'm putting lives at risk?!" he said, yanking at Kiriko's uniform. "I'm the one who's saving them by getting you out of there!" Kiriko blinked and stared. His sweat went cold.

"…What?" he said.

"Don't play stupid! I know you've been giving them too much morphine. I know you've been using up our supply of it and other painkillers—I keep track of all that!" Nonaka said. "You're a murderer! A cold-blooded murderer!" Kiriko glared and wrenched away.

"I'm not cold!" he said. "You don't know anything!" Nonaka grabbed his shoulder with one hand.

"Over sixty percent of the patients you've treated have passed away due to what you call unknown reasons. You haven't been arguing to save limbs or to not give up, you haven't been encouraging the men, you barely speak to anyone! You don't even, even drink! What has happened to you, Kiriko?" he said. He clasped his hand around Kiriko's other shoulder. "You were such a promising doctor!" Kiriko looked at the ground and clenched his teeth.

"No, all that is meaningless," he said. "It's all worthless! Those men—the men I save—they _want_ to die, Doctor Nonaka. They're in such pain and they know that the goddamned emperor will never make room for cripples back home." He looked into Nonaka's eyes and his voice rose. "If I saved their lives, so what? What good is it, what use is it? So they can go back to their suffering families and just be another burden? So they can feel their wounds keep festering in their bodies and minds? So they can eventually try and kill themselves with a poorly-aimed gunshot and end up even worse than dead? Doctor, tell me, what's the use of saving their lives when I can save them from a lifetime of pain, and humiliation, and shame? They call me their savior! Their _savior_!"

Nonaka stared at him, pale. His jaw shook.

"You need to be dealt with," he said, and grabbed Kiriko's arm. He dragged him along and did not look at Kiriko’s face.

"Wait, Doctor Nonaka!" Kiriko said.

Nonaka took ten steps with Kiriko protesting behind. A gunshot. He fell to the ground, a hole in his chest. Kiriko stopped. He looked ahead. Americans. They rushed forward.

Kiriko ran. He stumbled over roots and branches. Bullets whipped last him. One grazed his shoulder. He buckled over. Something landed ten feet away. He saw the grenade, shouted, and crawled away. It exploded. The fire seared his left side. Shrapnel pierced his eye. He screamed, agonized, and the Americans grabbed him. They spoke in English.

"Prisoner?" one said.

"Will he live?" another said.

"Yeah, it’s just his eye."

"Alright."

They dragged him away.

\--- _Epilogue_ \---

Kiriko sat next to his patient, a woman with metastatic uterine cancer, and slipped two nodes onto her head, behind her ears. He flipped on his death machine and adjusted it.

“This will only take a moment. It will be just like going to bed,” he said and straightened up. He pushed back his long, grey hair and adjusted his eyepatch. “Once you’ve fallen asleep, electronic waves will paralyze the parts of your brain that regulate breathing. You’ll dream, then you will stop breathing, and then you can rest. Completely painless, completely peaceful.” She smiled.

“Thank you, doctor,” she said. “This is what’s best for my family. I’ve been a burden too long.” He smiled back at her and turned a dial on his machine.

“Pleasant dreams,” he said. The machine hummed.

"Stop!" The bedroom door banged open. Kiriko and the woman jolted. Her husband hurried in and yanked the nodes off. Kiriko glared and checked them for damage.

"Dear, you're interrupting," the woman said. "Let the kind doctor put all this stress to an end, I beg you." Her husband clasped her hand.

"There's another doctor here. He said he can cure you for the same price as what we'd pay _him_ ," he said, and shot a toxic glare at Kiriko. Kiriko clicked his tongue.

"If he can, I'll certainly be impressed. But it's impossible," he said and shook his head. Another man stepped in. Kiriko looked up and widened his eye. He was so young! And that shock of white hair, that Draculan cloak, that awful scar on his face--clearly he wasn't a typical doctor. Probably some sort of faith healer, and certainly unlicensed.

"Don't be so certain," the new doctor said. "I'll give it a shot. I'd say your chances of survival are roughly sixty percent, under my care." He smirked at Kiriko. "Much greater than this fiend's zero percent." Kiriko scowled.

"Some sort of pagan witch doctor?" he said. "That's desperate, don't you think?"

"Please." The man opened his cloak, revealing rows of scalpels. "Who are you, anyway?"

Kiriko stood and straightened his suit. "It's polite to introduce yourself first. But seeing how insufferable you seem… Doctor Kiriko. And you?"

"Black Jack."

"Never heard of you."

"Nor I you."

They stared at each other, glaring down their noses.

"Can you really heal me?" the woman said. Black Jack blinked and looked at her.

"Like I said, I'll give it a shot. For comparatively cheap, too--my usual fee is thirty million." Kiriko's jaw dropped.

"This man is a charlatan!" He pointed at Black Jack. "He's taking advantage of you because he knows there's no hope!"

"Please help me, doctor." The woman sobbed and her husband held her close.

"We'll begin the operation tonight. Kiriko, you can stick around and watch for free, if you'd like," Black Jack said and grinned.

"Oh, I'll watch. I'll stick around, all right, until the op fails so you can learn a thing or two about life!" Kiriko said.

He stood aside next to the husband as this Black Jack man pumped up a big plastic balloon. He crossed his arms and shook his head.

But then Black Jack started cutting. Kiriko stared, and his eye only stayed half-open. His knees felt weak when those scalpels shimmered in Black Jack’s tactile fingers. Flashbacks of his time as a field doctor played in his head, and as Black Jack stitched the patient up, he had to sit down. He held his head, gritted his teeth, and blinked away tears.

Black Jack left with a fat wad of cash in his pocket. Kiriko left with only his mantra: Worthless, useless, pointless.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna ramble about my two favorite doctor bastards for a moment because, well, I feel like it.
> 
> Kiriko fascinates me as a character and it's a shame that he doesn't pop up more often in the chapters of Black Jack. So, here we are. Both Black Jack and Kiriko respect life, but they have a very different understanding of what respecting life actually entails. Black Jack believes that it's vital to prolong life by any means necessary, if there's a chance that said life can be prolonged. We see this in chapters where he operates on people without their consent, in particular, and where he aggressively encourages his patients to keep fighting. This is clearer in earlier chapters, where he's far more arrogant, though as he matures he actually seems to adopt some of Kiriko's views (though definitely not his practices). Though he does respect life and a person's right to live, he does seem to think that certain lives are more worthwhile/deserved than others--which is why his fees, and what he'll accept for payment--vary so much between patients. Generally, he charges politicians and criminals more money, and sometimes accepts literal toys from the children and poor folks he treats. (If Robin Hood practiced medicine, that'd be BJ in a nutshell.) I interpret BJ as being agnostic, likely accepting that a higher power exists, but that there's nothing for humans beyond our own lifespans. 
> 
> Kiriko, on the other hand, values life but also recognizes that death is part of it. Unlike BJ, he puts more emphasis on the patient's choices and autonomy, and likely trusts his patients to make an informed decision about ending their life. He's really written as a reactionary element to Black Jack (though they both push and pull against each other), and it's obvious that he's disgusted by BJ's absolutely reasonable-in-the-current-United-State's-medical-system prices (there's your scathing political commentary for the day). He's more likely to see all human life as being equal. Because of that, his character is a little inconsistent in various chapters--it could be inconsistencies in Tezuka's writing, but it might also be some character development on his end. It is revealed that he truly does want to save lives, but at the same time, he doesn't want to put patients through extreme pain and torment so they can live. There's a religious element to his "sacred work," as well--he uses that line to tell BJ why he doesn't assist suicides (rather, he puts people out of their misery), and chances are, he believes in some sort of afterlife as well as a higher power.
> 
> As doctors, they experience situations beyond their control. How they react to it is obviously different--Kiriko accepts that he's not god or godlike, while BJ actively and sometimes futilely fights against circumstance (and is brutally hard on himself when he does fail). Likely, that's because of their upbringing. Kiriko was a cog in the Japanese imperial army, Black Jack was centimeters from death and still survived through a ridiculously tough surgery and his own will. So, if Kiriko fails, that's just what fate had in store for him and the patient. If Black Jack fails, it's his own fault as a surgeon. (This is also partially why I made Kiriko a POW here--so that he'd be in yet another situation where he has no control over his fate, and likely one where he assumed he'd die at the end, given what he knew about the Japanese military's treatment of POWs. Perhaps during his time as a prisoner he became even friendlier with death and the concept of fate.) 
> 
> I'll stop there. Thank you for reading, bookmarking, subscribing, giving kudos, and especially commenting. Feedback is important to me and I'd love to know what you think!


End file.
